Operator News
Guyana – Kourou shows casino ambition in Guyana
By Phil - 4 December 2017
The commune of Kourou, in Guyana, administrative region of eastern Venezuela, has launched a call for applications for the operation of a casino on its territory.
This is not the first time Kourou has been thinking about setting up a casino. In April 2012, a first public service delegation procedure was launched. The only candidate who answered did not meet all the criteria and the municipality abandoned the project in July 2015.
Councilor Adelson Magloire said: “The administrative and political environment has evolved and is much more favorable, with the pooling of resources and the promotion of the territory. A steering committee has been set up, with various partners, the community of communes, the territorial community, the Chamber of Commerce, to reflect on the measures that the city should take in terms of a favorable solution.”
The potential location of the new project has shifted. The future casino could be located at the edge of Lake Chaudat, on the main road to enter the city, 2km from the National Highway 1, the main road that passes through the department of Saint-Laurent du Maroni in the west, to Cayenne in the east.
Kourou is not the only Guyanese town that wants a casino. After the failure of Matoury, Cayenne, a region that was initially not interested, finally decided to show its interest. It will probably be late December or early January 2018. In Matoury, the project carried out by the group Cogit, which has been long established in the region where it operates all the Caribbean casinos in Martinique and Guadeloupe, envisaged in its economic impact study, 160,000 visitors per year and a GGR of €8m. It launched a casino project in 2011 and on March 1, 2013, Matoury signed on the dotted line with SOGEXCAM, a subsidiary of the Cogit group.
The casino didn;t come to fruition though and Cogit took legal action with proceedings are pending.
The firm Atout France sees bigger opportunities in Cayenne which it believes could generate GGR of €36m.
Georgetown already has two casinos including Guyana Princess Hotel and Casino, the largest in the country with 16 table games and 250 slots.
Sandwiched between Suriname and Brazil, French Guiana is an overseas region and department of France. Brazil has of course decided to modify its legislation on casino gaming. Surinamese casinos are mainly located in the capital, Paramaribo, in the middle of the country, 150 km west of Saint Laurent du Maroni. There are around 15 casinos, the largest of which have 250 slot machines and 14 traditional gaming tables.
